


you, love (are safe as houses)

by coppertears



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, College, M/M, Neglect, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7155998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coppertears/pseuds/coppertears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>right now he's being tossed by the waves but chanyeol is his rock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you, love (are safe as houses)

  
**you, love (are safe as houses)**  
chanyeol/baekhyun  
pg-13  
w: unbeta'd  
  
gift fic for [](http://sleepyrice.livejournal.com/profile)[**sleepyrice**](http://sleepyrice.livejournal.com/).

prompt: [ _airplanes_](http://grammatolatry.tumblr.com/post/4257980866/i-over-breakfast-my-father-asks-what-you-see) by rachel mckibbens

 

 

 

 

 

**i.**

five squared. _twenty-five_. the square root of 625. _twenty-five_. five multiplied by five. _twenty-five_. the silver in the cupboard reflecting neglect despite the dust, the picture frames grasping for remembrance on the peach walls, the empty shells of chairs cradling life and memories and not much else. it’s been twenty-five years, but eating in the family’s dining room still feels a lot like eating with silence and yesterdays but never tomorrows.

baekhyun shifts his leg when he hears a rustle, reflex kicking in. then he remembers that brownie, the toy poodle he’d grown up with, is dead now. dead dogs can’t wrap themselves around his ankles and chain him down with comfort in a language only they can understand. he feels the weight drag his heart down -- gravity has nothing to do with this. sadness does.

he keeps slathering butter on his toast. he doesn’t shift his leg back.

 

 

 

**ii.**

on the sunset after his high school graduation, baekhyun packs his medals and certificates in a cardboard box that he pushes to the back of his closet. fractured negatives of his childhood memories get scattered all over the bedroom floor. his clothes have already been sent to his apartment weeks prior; baekhyun surveys the place for things worth keeping and finds nothing.

before he leaves, he shoves his cracked and peeling smiles in his backpack along with his fraying laughter. there’s still a lot of space inside so he adds a tiny measure of innocence -- more grains slip through his fingers. what he has left of love, he wraps up in defensiveness and cynicism because he’s got plenty of those, and he labels it with _fragile, please handle with care_. he keeps his wishes and dreams in his pockets.

if there’s anything that his father has taught him, it’s to keep the more expendable things within reach, the ones which are important yet abundant and easy to replace.

he says goodbye to his mother at the bottom of a staircase dipped in shadows. baekhyun pretends that she is crying, so he can feel better about himself and their relationship. so he can say that there’s something he is leaving behind. but she only tells him to wash his clothes regularly and turn the lights off when he sleeps and he has to get a job because college is expensive --

“yes, yes, okay, umma,” baekhyun murmurs, kissing away the last fragments of weariness from her cheeks. her eyes swim in silence. her hands tremble with the need to hold something, anything, but they refuse to hold her son.

his father doesn’t even bother to see him off.

baekhyun climbs inside the secondhand car that his parents are passing down to him. there is a lone rose and a wilting bouquet of tulips strapped to the passenger’s car -- things that some people had pressed into his embrace earlier, when he was still diving into the thick of proud parents and students and the festering wounds of parents who saw nothing in him. who only saw uselessness and duty swirling on the edges of his skin. who sewed the seams of parents taking responsibility for their child into his being, but forgot to include the genuine love and care.

baekhyun knows he’s never been the son they wanted, only the one they had to live with when his sister died and they couldn’t bear the haunting echoes, the need to have another child to fill the spaces crackling in between.

the engine roars to life on that flickering april night, blue and purple and indigo running down the choked insides of skies. he watches yellow warm up the house’s windows, cascading down the walls in an attempt to light up the place. baekhun steps down hard on the clutch. he switches gear, finds the gas, is traveling down the road before he knows it.

he’s used to all of this.

 

 

 

 

living with himself gets better as time passes. he burns batches of eggs and toast, even ramyun, so baekhyun buys the cheapest take-out he can find on his first week. on the second week, he manages to just sear the food a little. they come out mostly unscathed. baekhyun pats himself on the back.

sometimes when he’s curled up in his sleep t-shirt, falling asleep to the silence building up staccatos at his naked feet, baekhyun can hear the revelry from the other doors. he hears snatches of _hyung, that’s cheating!_ and _pass the water_ and _did you mix up pepper and sugar again?_. baekhyun stares up at the ceiling. he wonders if he should go up to them some time, strike a conversation or just say hello.

he rolls over and decides not to. it isn’t like strangers will be any more receptive to someone whose own family doesn’t even want him around. even when he closes his eyes, disapproval is there, piling up in the corners. judgment sits on the center table. baekhyun can’t even find rest at midnight, when the words tear through all the walls he has built and make a perfect settlement in his hippocampus, engaging his emotions in senseless battles between day and night.

it’s a thursday when he decides to take out his trash. may nights are drenched in sentimentality, and as baekhyun slips on pants and shoes and a hat to cover his wayward hair, he listens to the jazz tunes coming from the apartment next door. the music is softer tonight, as if his neighbors are trying to match the atmosphere. usually they blare out rock or electro or dance step, drums and bass knocking on baekhyun’s door while he rolls over in his bed and covers his ears.

the communal garbage chute is located down the end of the hallway, lights dying in the breeze. it’s warm, humid even. baekhyun makes sure he has his keys before locking his doors, and he drags his trash bags along the aging granite tiles. he hums to himself.

“do you need some help?” a deep voice rumbles beside him. baekhyun’s almost shocked out of his skin but he clutches his chest and paces himself. he turns around and arranges a polite smile on his face.

“it’s okay, i can manage,” he hears himself say. he stares at a black-and-white graphic of _iron maiden_ before bringing his gaze up and looking at a face full of large eyes and a wide grin. tousled black hair all slicked up. huge ears sticking out.

the guy raises an eyebrow at him. “are you sure?” he asks, pushing himself off of the railing he’s leaning against. baekhyun only just notices the can of cola that’s dripping coldness onto the guy’s fingers, and the headphones wrapped around his neck. “no offense, but you kind of of look like you’re struggling with those.”

baekhyun doesn’t know whether to be offended. he doesn’t know if the offer of help is meant to be insulting or well-meaning. he’s not good at this, at reaching across borders and being noticed. he’s lived most of his life trying to be as insubstantial as the air. baekhyun looks down at his tied-up trash bags and thinks that the black plastic is coming off in bits and pieces, getting caught up in his hands.

rough, calloused fingers dislodge baekhyun’s hold on the second trash bag. baekhyun looks up again to find the stranger’s face much, much closer. he thinks the guy’s attractive in a way -- he seems cute and handsome and charming, and danger drips around the edges if baekhyun looks hard enough.

“it’s really okay,” he says. he tries to tug back the bag but the guy’s hold on it is firm. “i can do it --”

“and i’m telling you it’s okay to let me help.” the guy flashes him a brilliant grin that reminds baekhyun of sun flashing through leaves and branches and bark. “come on, the chute’s pretty near anyway.”

they walk down the rest of the hallway, the music still chasing them. baekhyun hears the stranger humming, watches as he occasionally takes sips of his cola. the lighting’s bad in this area because the apartments here are unoccupied, so he only sees his neighbor’s profile in jagged cuts and flashes.

“you’re new here, aren’t you?” the guy asks when they’re unloading the trash bags. “first time i’ve seen you and i’ve been living in this complex for almost a year now.”

“yeah,” baekhyun says. “i moved in about three weeks ago, though most of my stuff were brought in about two months back.”

he watches the bags tumble down the chute, listens to the crash and the thunk as it hits the bottom. he almost doesn’t register the hand being held out to him. baekhyun stares at it, then up at the stranger’s face, then back down the chute. he only just catches the cola can slipping into the darkness.

“my name’s chanyeol,” the guy says. baekhyun thinks if he looks up now, the bright smile will still be glowing incandescent on chanyeol’s lips.

baekhyun takes chanyeol’s hand, not quite sure what to do with it. it’s smoother than it looks, though the pads of his fingers feel coarse to the touch. baekhyun doesn’t mind. it feels comforting. “baekhyun,” he half-whispers, trying to pry up the corners of his lips into something resembling a smile.

“nice to meet you, baekhyun,” chanyeol says. “what’s your unit?”

“506,” baekhyun says. too late he thinks that he probably shouldn’t be handing out personal information like this -- but then chanyeol looks harmless, as harmless as any person has the right to be at this hour.

chanyeol’s eyes widen. “ah, really? i live in 507, the unit beside yours.”

baekhyun blinks. “you’re the one who plays music at top volume?” he asks before he can check himself.

“about that…” chanyeol winces and scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “sorry, i kind of live with my band and we tend to practice late. does it bother you?”

“no!” baekhyun blurts out. “no, no, it’s fine. just something i noticed.” he looks back down the hallway, itching to leave. chanyeol seems to notice this because he takes a step back, letting go of baekhyun’s hand in the process -- and baekhyun’s never even taken stock of how long he’s been holding chanyeol’s hand as if it’s his lifeline.

“well, i’ll see you around then, baekhyun?” chanyeol says, but it sounds more like a question. baekhyun can see the uncertainty drifting in chanyeol’s brown irises. it doesn’t look all that familiar -- the unspoken hope of wanting to see each other again, of sticking around, of maybe letting this meeting become more than just a brief exchange of words.

baekhyun nods. it’s half-hearted, he knows. chanyeol doesn’t know that, though, and he seems satisfied with it. the taller guy stays there, but baekhyun can feel his gaze following him even after he steps inside the apartment and locks his door behind him.

his heart is a blueprint of iron chains with deadbolts, and baekhyun thinks it’s going to take more than just cola-dipped fingers and lightbulb smiles to tear all of that down.

 

 

 

 

 

**iii.**

tension is splattered all over the room and baekhyun doesn’t know how to wipe it off. he’s given up on it seven years ago, putting down the rag that never seems to be doing anything despite how much baekhyun scrubs away. he edges his glance over at chanyeol, feeling like the tall guy is out of place in this strange play, watching the way chanyeol’s hands tighten around his knife.

his father sits at the other end of the table. coffee steams beside his right hand, while his mother is in the kitchen announcing her presence with every _clink_ that follows the utensils she’s setting down. baekhyun thinks he should help, but he can see the way his father rolls up the newspaper and throws it aside. he leans forward with a calculating gaze.

he thinks it probably hurts more to stay here in his seat, to listen; but he wants to know.

“park chanyeol, is it?” he hears his father ask.

baekhyun looks down at his pancakes. he thinks of drizzling more syrup, but that’s like adding more salt to bitterness and expecting it to come out sweet. almost like drowning, pulled under and under until the surface of the water becomes the sky.

“yes, sir.” chanyeol is his rock, baekhyun thinks. right now he’s being tossed by the waves but chanyeol is his rock, strong and steady and secure, and baekhyun holds on with everything he has. _anything_ he has -- the wavering voice at dusk and the insecurities; the piano playing at midnight, the cracked and aching smiles, the nerves forever perched on cliff tops for the right time to jump.

“what do you see in him?” his father asks with a hint of amusement, as if expecting the lack of an answer.

baekhyun slices his pancakes into neat squares and spears them with his fork. he shoves them into his mouth. they burn down his tongue and teeth and leave him with a charred throat, and baekhyun looks at the salt shaker sitting just a breath away, as if it knows where the scars are. as if, in this suffocating room, it can peel away the layers of pretense and find the wounds still bleeding almost a decade later.

he swallows.

 

 

 

 

 

**iv.**

chanyeol is in his music theory class.

in the harsh fluorescence, he looks far different. he’s bigger when he’s not being pared down by liquid black into swatches of flesh and bone, more corporeal and less dreamlike, and he sits in the middle with a group of other rowdy boys. baekhyun chooses a seat in the back, far enough to not be remembered yet near enough to not miss the entirety of the lesson. he eyes chanyeol’s nape and the mess of black hair on his head. he wants to reach out and card his fingers through it, wondering if it’s as warm and comforting and rough as the taller guy’s hand.

he opens his binder and blinks at the lined paper. as the teacher calls out roll, baekhyun writes his name on the top right corner of the first page. stroke upon steady stroke. he hears chanyeol’s voice boom in its roundness, its deepness -- he thinks that it sounds so whole.

later, when he looks up to acknowledge the teacher calling out _byun baekhyun_ and scanning the room for him, he sees the way chanyeol’s shoulders stiffen. baekhyun murmurs _present_ ; the word falters halfway through its journey to the professor, but she sees his raised hand anyway.

chanyeol sees it as well, because his head’s snapping up and he’s turning around, picking apart faces in the crowd behind him. baekhyun waits patiently but he knows chanyeol’s probably not going to recognize him.

their gazes collide despite three rows of people between them, and baekhyun almost breaks his pen. chanyeol smiles at him, then, teeth slashing happiness through the air. baekhyun nods his head, lets an answering smile glow on his lips. he turns it off when chanyeol looks back to the teacher.

when class ends, chanyeol appears in front of him. baekhyun zips his backpack and looks up.

“this -- ah -- i didn’t think we’d end up in the same college,” chanyeol stutters out. “what’s your next class?”

“why are you here?” baekhyun asks. he bites his lip when he hears himself, listens to the way the syllables are too harsh and the tone too jagged for someone who hasn’t even done anything wrong.

chanyeol doesn’t pull back, though. he just brushes it off with, “i go to school here, of course. this is my first class.” he catches baekhyun’s perplexed gaze. “but if you’re asking why i’m here, talking to you, it’s because i know you and you’re my neighbor and you’re new here. so i figured, why not tour you around?”

“you don’t need to,” baekhyun says, slinging on his backpack. “you really don’t need to. besides, aren’t you new here, too?”

something crosses chanyeol’s face then. “ah, not really,” he says. he looks anywhere but at baekhyun. “it’s...complicated. but the point is, i’ve been here for some time.”

baekhyun blinks. “then aren’t you older or something? should i be calling you --”

“no, it doesn’t matter,” chanyeol says. “come on, give me your class schedule and i’ll show you where your rooms are.”

and baekhyun doesn’t do things like this. he hides in plain sight and weaves cobwebs when no one is looking; he wraps himself in puzzle pieces, thinking he won’t ever be understood. maybe chanyeol doesn’t understand, not really, and baekhyun can’t blame him. but the taller guy’s hand is around his wrist and he’s breaking the silence into words that _speak_.

he’ll probably figure him out in time, anyway.

 

 

 

 

chanyeol is a rollercoaster ride: all loops and gushing air and tilt-a-whirls that knock the breaths out of baekhyun until he’s gasping for anything he can find. he is the crest, the trough, the seconds between falling and the stomach drop when it happens. it’s safe to say that baekhyun can’t figure him out either.

chanyeol introduces him to his bandmates on a smoke-smudged night, baekhyun tugged inside apartment 507 when he lingers a minute longer than he should have at his doorstep. and with them it’s always the frozen seconds and delayed hours that baekhyun ends up treasuring, that keeps them moving, and baekhyun’s still not used to waiting (staying) but he thinks he can learn. he’s growing adept at the art of it, memorizing the names and faces that chanyeol hands him. kyungsoo is the cook and the vocalist, yixing is the sweet-spirited guitarist, jongin plays the bass with toxic smirks.

he learns the why: _love for music, summer, kids fooling around, things getting bigger_ ; the how: _garage, gigs from dawn to dusk, supportive parents, bright lights_ ; and everything else. he learns the inner curve of chanyeol’s wrist and the look of concentration that eclipses the taller guy’s face when he’s playing the drums. he learns friendship, and missing someone, and emotions that threaten to overflow. he learns about permanence and temporariness and how they feel so much like the same thing.

“how long have you been playing the piano?” chanyeol asks him one day when he learns what his major is.

“too long,” baekhyun says, remembering the stillness fractured by notes and the sound of his father’s breathing in the next room. he remembers fire, red trailing up a canvas of blue skies, music sheets serving as fuel. “far too long.”

chanyeol doesn’t press. he swerves, changes topic; baekhyun is glad for that.

 

 

 

 

his parents stop pretending by the first semester of second year. the phone calls trickle to tense monosyllables when break hovers close, and it’s not like his parents are curious about how he’s doing in school. baekhyun seals up the nicks on his heart with things he can find -- with plaster and whitewash and dandelion fuzz and morning dew. he does a poor job.

chanyeol comes along with his enthusiasm and optimism and every color of the rainbow, and baekhyun’s heart is still beeping to zero but it’s a lot better now. it’s always a lot better with chanyeol.

 

 

 

 

**v.**

the car ride back is filled with lana del ray. chanyeol doesn’t switch stations and baekhyun feels too small to do anything but shrink further in his seat, and he wonders if leather warps. the streets are crumbling beneath his gaze. he won’t be coming back here anytime soon, not when chanyeol reaches across the console and lays his hand over baekhyun’s, not when baekhyun can almost feel the emotions rippling over the taller guy’s skin.

“do you want to stop somewhere?” chanyeol asks.

baekhyun shakes his head. “no, let’s just head straight home.”

“we just left it,” chanyeol says, glancing at him. “your home, i mean. except it won’t be home any longer if i have anything to do with it.”

“it’s not --” he hears the crack, the rip in his vocal cords. “it hasn’t been home for a long while now.”

chanyeol squeezes his hand. “i know.”

they drive on in silence, and baekhyun tries to estimate how far he has to go until hurt stops chasing him and turns on its tail.

 

 

 

 

 

**vi.**

it’s a charcoal night when baekhyun asks chanyeol to let him go. the moon is empty space, the stars are dots of glitter, and baekhyun is a sketched figure of a man unable to stay brave. he’s scared. he’s known the feeling far longer than he’s known himself, and when it perches on his shoulder he tells chanyeol to stop.

it’s his last year in college. chanyeol’s graduated two years before because he’d gone for early entry despite being younger than baekhyun. the drummer keeps coming back, though, keeps returning to baekhyun even though all baekhyun wants is for him to let go. they still live in the same apartment complex. rock music and frenzied beats crash through baekhyun’s windows from time to time.

baekhyun wants chanyeol to let go of him. he wants to sever the threads linking them, cut them all off before they become so impossibly intertwined. because it’s there, licking around the edges of the frame when they are together -- it’s there, that burning gaze, when hands brush and breaths mingle and he lets himself fall too close to chanyeol. the intensity of it turns every action viscous, twisting and turning around baekhyun until he cannot move.

he doesn’t want the questions collapsing when they so much as step forward, the desires that run liquid hot in veins, the staccatos that build up in their chests. he doesn’t want the tenderness that comes with chanyeol’s touch, the softness in his whispered words.

he doesn’t want the feelings climbing up his rib cage and messing up his blueprint of iron chains with deadbolts.

“stop this,” baekhyun says that night, when the grays are so dark that they’re no different from black, when the sky is painted navy and heaving with ships that will never be launched. “stop this, chanyeol.”

chanyeol’s steps don’t even falter. “stop what, baekhyun?”

baekhyun feels choked. he cannot get the words out. he looks up at chanyeol, at the way his lips are tinged with a silent promise, and he cannot get the words out. “you know what i mean,” he says instead.

“no, i don’t know what you mean, baekhyun,” chanyeol says. “you’ll have to explain.”

chanyeol’s gaze is a spotlight. baekhyun is still hiding in plain sight. “stop looking at me like that.”

chanyeol raises his eyebrows. “stop looking at you like what?”

“like...like…” baekhyun reaches for words. he feels the letters slip through his fingers. _like you’re in love with me. like i mean something. like you see me._

“like…?” chanyeol prompts.

and he doesn’t know what he says, if he says anything at all, because the next second baekhyun runs. the sidewalk fades away beneath his feet. distance rises and swallows him whole, and baekhyun lets himself be taken away.

 

 

 

 

he hangs out of his bedroom’s window sill the midnight after, pale neck stretching out and wind combing his hair. traffic scintillates below, turning the roads into bokeh prints of red and blue and yellow. baekhyun doesn’t hear any music coming from next door tonight. he wonders if he ever will again.

“baekhyun!”

the voice is familiar, too familiar, and it raises goosebumps along every inch of baekhyun’s skin. before he can stop himself, he searches, and he finds chanyeol standing on the steps of the fire escape. “what are you doing?” he hisses.

it’s cold. baekhyun knows this, because it’s the middle of december and everyone wants to be home, but home is here for baekhyun now. home is here, and chanyeol is home, the closest thing to home he’s ever had at least, and he is scared. he knows he’s scared. fear skitters up his spine, sinks its claws into neurons and renders him unable to decide.

chanyeol’s feet are bare and he’s only in a t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. baekhyun wants to gather him up, condense his heat in his arms and keep him safe from the rest of the world. still he is afraid.

the taller guy just grins up at him in the way that baekhyun doesn’t deserve, has never deserved. there’s something loose that coils itself in baekhyun’s chest. it tightens. he forgets to breathe. “i was looking for you,” chanyeol stammers out, and he’s shivering so bad. “you didn’t come out for days, and you refused to answer your phone.”

“i didn’t want you to find me.”

chanyeol flinches. “why not, baek?”

baekhyun can feel the tears pricking his eyelids, demanding release. he hasn’t cried for years now. he doesn’t want to start crying again because of a beautiful boy standing in a fire escape, the world blurring around him in a december filled with frost and chilly wind. “because it didn’t -- you weren’t -- it’s not supposed to happen,” he stutters out.

“but it was bound to happen, baek,” chanyeol shouts up at him, his voice sounding raw. “you knew it was going to happen. you knew from the start, when i helped you out with your trash and asked you for your name -- you knew this was where we were headed, and you’d be lying if you said otherwise.”

baekhyun shakes his head. he knows what chanyeol’s saying is true but he can’t, he can’t accept it. “i don’t want this.”

chanyeol’s shoulders droop. his chest rises and falls. “but i do,” he half-whispers, and the shards of pain refract into the same color in his eyes. “i do. i want this. _i want you_.” he’s shaking so hard at the end, fingers clasping and unclasping.

“yeol,” baekhyun says -- sobs, maybe, he’s not sure -- and it takes all of his will to not just carry chanyeol home, “yeol, i don’t deserve anyone. i don’t deserve you. just go find someone else --”

“do you think,” chanyeol interrupts, anger flaring within him, “this is a game? that i am playing around? there is no someone else, baekhyun, no one can replace you. i love you and _only_ you!”

the words ring out against the steel, riding on the breeze. baekhyun doesn’t know if chanyeol’s lips are cold but his own heart is being thawed out after the frostbite. he opens his mouth, closes it. watches chanyeol’s lithe frame be wracked by sobs.

“i’m staying here,” chanyeol sniffs out. “even if you leave, i’m staying here.”

baekhyun watches as he sits down. he watches chanyeol hunch, trying to concentrate the heat within his core. “i don’t think i can leave anymore,” he murmurs to himself. “i don’t…” he shudders, trying to hold back a new wave of tears, and this is when he gives up. this is when he sees chanyeol be torn apart by the elements and by sadness, and baekhyun knows he can’t keep this up any longer.

he flings _i love you_ down the steps and waits for it to reach chanyeol’s ears.

 

 

 

 

 

**vii.**

when they reach their shared apartment, chanyeol cradles baekhyun before their door is even halfway closed. he carries him to the couch, lays him down and snuggles next to him, and he buries his nose in baekhyun’s chest. baekhyun kisses the top of his head and wonders how, after all this time, chanyeol still makes everything worth it.

“sing for me?” chanyeol asks, voice rough with missed sleep.

baekhyun watches tomorrow glow bright on chanyeol’s face. he watches it dawn in the spaces between his fingers, fluttering in through the curtains and the gaps in the windows.

he picks a song in his mental playlist and sings it, loud and clear and golden, and when chanyeol murmurs _i love you_ against the shell of his ear, baekhyun doesn’t shy away anymore. he leans in instead, lets the affection wash him clean of his doubts.

“i love you, too,” he says against the seam of chanyeol’s lips.

 

 

 

 

**viii.**

baekhyun’s heard of the things people do for love. he’s heard of the elegance, of the nooses slipped round necks in a crass recreation of reality. he’s heard of the romance, the bodies floating in rose-soaked water, scented by their own blood. it seems sadness exists in a more potent form when there is something to lose.

he doesn’t believe love is blind. it’s not, because baekhyun sees chanyeol’s flaws every day the same way chanyeol sees his. he sees and it’s there, the mistakes embroidered into a person’s soul until even crochet is a metaphor for hiding what needs to be hidden, but it’s not like either of them refuse to acknowledge the fact. because when chanyeol holds his face in his hands and rubs his nose against his -- when chanyeol murmurs the endless reasons why he loves baekhyun on pale and flushed skin -- when chanyeol kisses him in the middle of the bus stop crowd when it’s raining, baekhyun finds out that love isn’t about being blind. it isn’t about selectively seeing, either.

it’s about looking for everything, every little piece of a person and putting them all together. it’s about seeing the rest and then the best, acknowledging the flaws and loving them all the same. it’s about believing, that in something riddled with cracks, there is still beauty.

baekhyun’s crashed and cracked and shattered beyond the point of saving, but every night chanyeol glues him back again. and chanyeol messes up sometimes, and he’s too clumsy, and he can knock baekhyun down with a single exhale. it doesn’t matter. it’s never mattered.

when chanyeol asks him, three years after the fire escape incident, to be with him forever, baekhyun doesn’t ask him for a minute to think about it. he asks chanyeol for an hour, and by the time he comes back to a chanyeol jittery with nerves, he’s written him a letter on yellow pad about why chanyeol’s taken entirely too long to ask.

and then, he kisses him.

 

 

 

 

**ix.**

they get married in a small wedding ceremony with a hundred guests. baekhyun’s father shoulders the costs with an apology crackling on his finger tips, but baekhyun thinks it’s too late for that. he lets his mother hold his arm during the wedding march and laughs at chanyeol when the latter gets teary-eyed, and he knows he’s never wanted an apology. all he’s wanted is love and he’s got it now, waiting for him at the altar with forever in its palms, and he feels like he can’t hold it in.

his chest expands, straining against the fragile fabric of his skin. it’s as if his heart wants to leap out at chanyeol and tell him, _take me_.

everyone waits for his response. happiness is clutched in his fist and glints off of the expectation and anxiety written on chanyeol’s face. baekhyun absorbs the sight of this man, the beauty that he sees in him, the _everything_ that’s encapsulated inside him.

he says, “i do.”

chanyeol snatches him up and tangles his hair and kisses the love out of him. baekhyun allows it; he gets all of the love back from chanyeol, anyway. they are vessels pouring into each other.

 

 

 

 

**x.**

“what do you see in me?” baekhyun asks softly, when they are lying in bed and the sunrise is still inches deep in the ocean outside. he splays fingers across chanyeol’s bare stomach and relishes the warmth.

“mmm.” chanyeol makes a sound in the back of his throat before pressing his lips against baekhyun’s hair. for a while, it doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything. then: “i see everything,” he whispers. “i see beauty and cracked smiles and laughter that’s always about to fall apart. i see piano melodies and raw voices and walls higher than mountains. i see the stars in your eyes and the wind in your hair, the butterflies you hold in your hands, the colors of the rainbow when it’s raining too hard. i see everything, and anything. i see _you_ , baekhyun, in your entirety.”

he tilts baekhyun’s chin up, lets their gazes intertwine. “most of all, i see love.”

baekhyun doesn’t speak. his fingers travel up until they are caressing chanyeol’s face, until he sears kisses onto chanyeol’s jaw. he doesn’t say, _i see everything in you._ he doesn’t say, _i see yesterday and today and tomorrow. i see forever. i see beats and rhythm and the light spilling out of your lips. i see twilight in your hair and dusk in your eyelashes. i see love in you, too, chanyeol._

he thinks of all of these and still silence remains, and baekhyun’s always thought that words are inadequate, anyway. there are other ways to speak.

  



End file.
